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Ferguson simply has exposed what has been happening for many years now in the wake of the Patriot Act, NDAA 2012, HR 347, which transformed our republic into a police state and stripped us of our Fourth Amendment rights. Thanks to the military-industrial complex, which makes billions off endless wars, we now have militarized police forces as well, armed to the teeth with weapons of war. See: https://www.aclu.org/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-policing

Protesters nationwide hope to transform their anger into change and secure the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights. See Ferguson Protesters Hope To Transform Anger Into Change, and a quick look at social media offers insight into what people are thinking. Check out Twitter hashtags #sandydarity, #justicefor mike #protestpoliceviolence, #FergusonSyllabus, and Twitter handles @civilright.org and @ryjareilly. For more information, see the Atlantic Magazine, 8-25-14 article by Marcia Chatelan “Ferguson is on the Syllabus:” http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/08/following_ferugson_teaching_the_crisis_in_the_classroom.html

As far as the justice system response goes, Prosecutor McCullough may likely be using the grand jury as a “delaying tactic” to absolve a guilty police officer of shooting Mike Brown on the street of Ferguson, Mo near where he lived with his parents. Officer Darren Wilson will tell his tale to the grand jury and no doubt there will be no trained opposing force who will challenge his story.

According to Bill Simpich, an Oakland attorney and the 2003 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the year, the 5th Amendment mandates the federal government to use the grand jury in capital cases, but he states that “it has fallen into disfavor over time and become an essential element of the New Jim Crow”. Simpich believes that “only a new civil rights movement can end this abuse of power.” This is part of a systemic problem that only can be corrected by putting the People back in charge of our government instead of a corrupt police state run by warmongering mega-corporations who care only about profits, not the human rights of an unarmed teenager.

In honor of Independence Day, the Women’s Declaration that was written for the femGA of the National Gathering in Philadelphia in 2012 is hereby featured as a reminder that half the human population in this country is still waiting for full Constitutional rights and to raise awareness of the global liberation of women worldwide. We demand ratification of the ERA and CEDAW, 50/50 gender representation, and an end to the WAR ON WOMEN that proceeds as we speak in Congress!

The Declaration of, by, and for Women

We, the Women of the United States of America on behalf of all women everywhere, hereby declare that we are inviolable sovereign entities whose worth is self-evident and whose life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and self-determination are inalienable fundamental human rights

Whereas Women have been, are, and will be the basic human template, bearers and sustainers of life, the gardeners, the herbalists, the healers, the nurturers, the teachers, scientists, legislators, doctors, jurists, athletes, inventors, artists, makers of music and makers of home, the poets, the writers, the breadwinners, the builders of community and nations, the cornerstone of society and the family

Whereas the rule by patriarchy for thousands of years has resulted in our rights being abridged, our being treated as property, our bodies being assaulted and sold, the Earth, our mother, plundered and polluted by profligate greed, our peace destroyed by continual war, our communities and families broken, and our institutions corrupted

Whereas patriarchy has perpetuated male dominance by:

Systematically excluding women from the realms of power, blocking the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, working against equal representation in government, refusing to ratify the CEDAW convention, and passing discriminatory legislation despite the fact that we are 51% of the population, pay taxes, and are your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and wives

Denying women economic parity by relying on women’s unpaid domestic labor, raising of children, caring for elders or loved ones who are chronically ill, denying women promotions, equal pay for equal work, working against increases in minimum wage and cost-of-living increases to Social Security

Attempting to control women’s reproduction by blocking access to sex education, family planning, birth control methods, pregnancy termination and other medical procedures, thereby restricting women’s autonomy and ability to reach full potential and even endangering women’s lives and health

Whereas the world is dangerously out-of-balance due to the abuse of power characteristic of patriarchy and empire-building, and as there will never be an end to conflict and injustice or lasting peace and harmony so long as women are mistreated and live in one form of bondage or another in societies ruled by men

We the Women hereby declare our independence from sanction or approval by a patriarchal culture or world system. We abjure and condemn all forms of domination of and violence towards women and girls everywhere. We declare our human right to live in a world free from misogyny and male supremacy that oppresses us and attempts to alienate us from our sisters in the struggle for truth, justice, fairness, equality, and peace

We unite in spirit and in action with all women and all men of conscience who join us in the struggle against the oppression of patriarchy until every woman in every nation everywhere across the globe can live in a world that is safe, harmonious, and respectful of life and nature, where women and the sacred feminine are again respected and honored as was the case in antiquity, and where we can live in peace and prosperity as many matri-focal societies have done

We hereby join in solidarity with our sisters throughout the world, across the boundaries of space and time, in acknowledging the women who came before us and who will follow us, in acceptance of all ages, colors, socioeconomic classes, national origins, ethnicities, sexual preferences, political affinities, abilities, and spiritual practices, in reclaiming our rightful place in roles of leadership in the family, the workplace, society, worship, and government.

We demand gender parity in the form of fair and equal representation in government, an immediate end to the War on Women and ALL wars, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We reclaim our long denied birthright to fully and freely explore and utilize our gifts, talents, intellect, spirituality, emotional sensibilities, sexuality, creativity, and power and declare this day, July 1, 2012 as our day of GLOBAL LIBERATION!

This is an homage to whistleblowers, a heartfelt paean of gratitude for your courage and your clarity, your putting ethics and the greater good over self-interest, generously risking your own well-being and safety because of your commitment to principle over profit and transparency over secrecy. You are the reason we know the extent of corporate corruption of government and the abuse of power, the impetus behind the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, the catalysts in the struggle for democracy and against authoritarianism.

It is the Daniel Ellsbergs, the John Kiriakous, the Aaron Swartzes, the Bradley Mannings, the Julian Assanges, and the Edward Snowdens who shine light on the cover-ups and the schemes of the 1% who would subvert democracy and justice in service of their lust for power, greed, and self-enrichment at the expense of the 99%. You are the best and bravest of us and the truth you disseminate shines brightest and most brilliantly through the strength of your character.

We will forever be in your debt and honor your service to humanity when we repeat your names as mantras invoking a higher consciousness and a deeper good for all life on this living planet. May the great goddess protect you from all harm and expand your influence to everyone everywhere and give them the courage and stamina to stand tall against oppression in all its forms! Daniel, John, Edward, Bradley, Julian, Aaron thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! You are beacons of light in a dark, benighted world!

The country is in a terrible state and we activists are run ragged trying to deal with endless permutations of corporate abuse and government corruption, running around like the proverbial headless chicken after all the assaults on our civil liberties, human rights, the environment, workers’ rights, the social safety net, women’s rights, a free and open Internet, and on and on. There is, however, one overarching source of these problems which encompasses all the others, ties them together, and once one understands its significance, explains what otherwise would be an overwhelming array of separate, disparate, insoluble predicaments over which we might throw up our hands in despair.

Regardless of the concern, all of them are traceable back to the corporate “personhood” abuse of our system and subversion of our democracy. Take any issue you like from foreign policy to food production and we can see how the corporate world has monopolized and controlled it for the purpose of amassing enormous wealth at the rest of our expense. How has it managed to do this? By utilizing the misbegotten legal doctrines of corporate “personhood” and money as “speech” that came in through the back door by way of the Supreme Court’s being taken over by some old corporate attorneys back in 1886. This precedent, set by what was actually a clerk’s summation of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case, has been wreaking havoc ever since.

Let me give you an example. Pretend for a moment that you are a poor, beleaguered billionaire who owns a pharmaceutical company and say you have this nifty new drug you want to foist on the public and there are all these pesky regulations that require you to actually test it first to make sure that it doesn’t cause birth defects, cancer, or premature death. What do you do?

Well rather than wring your hands in desperate frustration, you get to work and go out and lobby congress, bribe some politicians, buy a few elections in key districts, gobble up some tv stations and start disseminating disinformation about how safe and wonderful and life-enhancing it is, place some corporate shills in some key agencies like the FDA, get a few judges in your pocket, corrupt some research, patent some human genomes, challenge whatever laws or regulations may be on the books or slipped through congress that are cramping your go-getter, capitalist style and go to court under the commerce clause and argue that your “right” to make obscene profits off of people’s suffering is being hampered, and voila, you’ve got your drug approved!

If all of that doesn’t work, go to court on the basis of corporate “personhood” and argue that your “rights” under the Bill of Rights have been infringed upon and that you should be compensated by the taxpayers for all your pain and suffering at outrageously being required to actually do business legitimately! That will show those do-gooders and bleeding hearts that corporations are people too and your feelings are mightily hurt!

Now if we actually had a free press rather than a corporate-owned press, journalists could challenge this kind of propaganda and corruption, but once again, because of corporate rule and undue influence allowing them to dictate and even write many laws, impact policies of government agencies, not pay taxes, get government subsidies (i.e. corporate welfare) so they can amass billions, these corporations, owned by the 1%, can buy up all the news media they like and monopolize the message and go to court endlessly and challenge every law, regulation, and restriction until they get what they want. Case in point: the Koch Bros. are trying to buy the Tribune now (in addition to elections and politicians). As if Rupert Murdoch controlling the flow of information were not enough!

The corporation has been allowed to run amok, enabled by an increasingly corrupt government, becoming so enmeshed, that more and more the corporate world and government are indistinguishable from one another. In addition, the press has been taken over by the 1% and commandeered to be nothing more than corporate copywriters dispensing its pre-approved messaging, rather than doing its job of challenging and exposing this merger and sabotage of our democratic process.

Corporate “personhood” is the root cause of how nothing is working any more, like it did when FDR was President for instance, because it is a cancer that has metastasized throughout our entire political system and mortally infected it by eliminating all the safeguards and checks and balances on the abuse of power. It is as if the immune system has been disabled so that there is no longer any effective response to the opportunistic disease of corruption–a system that was previously capable of throwing off illness is no longer healthy enough to do so.

The patient has succumbed and is in its death throes unless we intervene and pass a Constitutional amendment to restore our democracy by excising corporate “personhood” and money as “speech,” the only remedy to this dire situation. We can no longer afford to offer the patient palliative relief by chasing symptom after symptom (though that billionaire big pharma owner would love us to do so). We must go for the all-out cure because democracy is all-but-dead and our Constitutionally-protected right to a government of, by, and for the PEOPLE, not the CORPORATION, is null and void if we do not.

There may be a plethora of problems, but fortunately the solution is elegantly simple: stop chasing the symptoms and attack the root cause of corporate “personhood.”

We honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy of non-violence as well as recognize the 3rd year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Many times, especially in the aftermath of violence like the recent school shootings, it is difficult to see the big picture and the interconnectedness of events, as we are overwhelmed by sorrow and a marrow-deep feeling of helplessness, and at first blush, these two symbolic dates may seem unrelated. They are not.

We recognize Dr. King’s birthday because he is a powerful symbol for peace and non-violent protest and we recognize the anniversary of Citizens United because it is a symbol of how out-of-control corporate influence and the pursuit of violence for profit is in this country. The theme today is “Peace or Profit: Violence as Commodity.” We chose this title to highlight the fact that this is indeed the choice and that there is a bigger pattern at play that needs to be illuminated. We can choose peace, or we can choose to allow runaway corporate profiteering off violence in all its forms: endless wars, weapons, defense contracts, the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on workers, the war on homeowners, the war on women and minorities, the war on the earth.

Some would say that we have peace here in America because we so aggressively protect our country from terrorism, but the truth is we are at war in the Middle East because of corporations protecting their oil interests and their profit margin and because they make billions from war itself. But corporations are also at war with the citizens of this country, and anyone is expendable in the pursuit of profit.

Achieving peace requires treating people and the earth with respect, a willingness to share wealth, and cooperation that can come from only a democratic system based on fairness, a level playing field, and the rejection of exploitation and violence, including economic violence, which today is being perpetrated by the 1% onto the 99% in a massive redistribution of wealth from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. The corporate elite have subverted our democracy for their own uses and have distorted it into a plutocracy.

The corporate world and the military-industrial complex profit greatly from, and are addicted to, violence, which has been turned into a commodity to be traded and sold for the profit of the 1% at the expense of the 99%. Violence, exploitation, and coercion are hallmarks of unbridled capitalism and greed, and corporate greed for profit is poisoning our society by nurturing sociopathy and turning the entirety of civilization and the earth itself into a perpetual war zone.

What are we to do about this? Many solutions are being proffered to address gun violence and campaign contributions, but while getting money out of politics and instituting some limits on the selling of any gun to anyone, are examples of how corporate abuse of our democratic system could be stemmed somewhat, there is a larger problem: corporate “personhood” and money as “speech.” This goes back much further than the 2010 Citizens United decision, to 1886 in fact, when the Supreme Court declared in Southern Pacific Railroad v. Santa Clara County that corporations are “persons.” Since that time, thousands of subsequent decisions have reinforced this misguided notion and allowed corporations to exploit this illegitimate status by claiming they have “rights” under the Bill of Rights, which was meant exclusively for actual people, not artificial entities like corporations, which are legal fictions. The end result is we now have corporate rule of every aspect of our lives. Let me give you an idea of the scope of the problem.

The Corporation controls:

Our industry – small mom and pops and independent businesses have increasingly been taken over by large corporations like Wal-Mart and the laws have been re-written to favor them

Our banks – small, independent, local banks have been taken over by huge multinationals who have engaged in criminal practices that have crashed domestic and foreign economies and who continue to illegallyforeclose on homeowners

Our airwaves – corporate giants have taken over major networks: GE (NBC), Disney (ABC), Westinghouse (CBS), Time-Warner, individualmedia moguls like Rupert Murdoch control huge markets (FOX Networks, 20th Century FOX, etc.) and Pat Robertson (Christian Broadcasting Network) while simultaneously fighting to end public television and radio, which is one of the only independent alternatives

The Internet – Internet Service Providers like AT & T, Verizon, Time-Warner track usage, attempt to curtail or eliminate access, pressure the FCC for authority to control online activity, back bills like SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA

Our drug policy – corporate interests support the “war on drugs”, thereby perpetuating a black market and violent cartels and the criminalizing of substances like marijuana in order to maximize profits from legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco)

Our commons – corporations bankrupt local governments, convert and take over public land, property, and infrastructure for private purposes and corporate gain; exploit natural resources—minerals, forests, oil, water–for private profit with no concern for environmental and health consequences while paying no royalties

Our government – Congress, the White House, and the Courts

1. Lobbying and the revolving door – corporations manipulate congress, regulatory agencies for the benefit of private enterprise to the detriment of the taxpayer and voter

2. Elections – corporations buy elections by funneling huge donations into campaigns while trying to suppress the vote of those who would oppose them

4. Legislation – corporations support and even write laws that benefit corporate interests rather than the interests of the people and fight passage of laws that would protect the citizenry

5. Ballot Initiatives – powerful corporate interests promote ballot initiatives that are often wolves in sheeps’ clothing that serve their interests at the people’s expense while dumping huge sums of money into defeating others like the tobacco industry did with Prop 29 in CA June 2012.

Corporate “personhood” and money as “speech” are at the core of this systemic sickness of profiting from violence, exploitation, and the stripping away of the constitutional rights of real people that has infected not only our nation but our world. There have been plenty of attempts to try to legislate campaign contributions, as well as environmental rights, workers’ rights, gun control, protect our food supply, and many other issues, all to no avail because the corporate world can and does litigate all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary on the basis of their supposed “rights” as “persons” being abridged or denied. “Personhood” was the prize they sought back in the 1800’s because they knew it would enable them to challenge every single law that local, state, or federal governments tried to pass to limit their abuses and protect the economy and the citizenry.

For example, money as “speech,” which was expanded upon in Citizens United, is based on the First Amendment, to which corporations have been enabled to claim they have a right because they have been recognized by the Supreme Court as “persons.” This decision allowed corporate interests representing the 1% to contribute millions of dollars in this last election cycle and will continue to allow the outright buying of elections and representation until we pass an amendment to the Constitution correcting this misappropriation of personhood standing to artificial entities, because any legislation that is passed will be struck down by the courts until “personhood” that was wrongly awarded to corporations is abolished.

People who are aligned with corporations will be the last to acknowledge the clear choice between profit or peace and that violence has been turned into a commodity by corporate greed, but eventually even their denial will be shaken I believe as the dark side of the corporate world is exposed to the light of day. The recent shootings reveal this to an excruciating degree as weapons and munitions manufacturers profit exponentially in the wake of these tragedies like Newtown, something they bank on and which they work to ensure through organizations like the NRA.

The TPP, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership “treaty”, also known as NAFTA on steroids, is another extreme current example of the insidious overreach of corporations and the extent to which they have infiltrated and control both major parties and run, and will even trump, government if TPP passes, as it will institute corporate world government where corporate tribunals will have the final say. It is vital that the public be made aware of these attempts to circumvent democracy and nullify the will of the people and the fact that nothing short of a constitutional amendment will remedy these abuses of power and unrelenting attacks on our freedoms.

Though the process is difficult and requires a sustained effort, the fix to the massive amount of problems we face is elegantly simple because all of them are traceable back to the abuse of the misguided notion of corporate “personhood.” Once this is corrected, laws can be passed to regulate corporate excesses and they will stick, because there won’t be any basis upon which to challenge them. Our non-partisan organization, Move to Amend, is building a grassroots movement towards this end, and keeps its eye singlemindedly on the goal of returning the power to the people via constitutional amendment to end corporate “personhood” and money as “speech.”

Our government has been bought and has allowed the corporate world to monopolize every sector of our economy and commit unspeakable crimes against humanity and the environment while escaping all accountability, paying no taxes, shipping our jobs overseas, and bankrupting our country while getting government contracts, subsidies, and bailouts. All of this has been made possible by the expansion of the unconstitutional concept of corporate rights. This insanity has to end.

Honoring peace, remembering our dead who are victims of all the forms of violence, and finding solutions means not only addressing the immediate crisis, but turning away from violence for profit and illuminating the clear choice between profit or peace by expanding the conversation to all of the ways in which violence is perpetrated, not simply by individuals with guns. We are either building peace and non-violence, or we are destroying it through pursuing profit through violence. As long as corporations and the profit motive rule, we will never have peace.

We must amend the Constitution to end the corporate takeover that has allowed the wealthy elite to ruin our economy, strangle our democracy, commodify and profit from violence and destroy our society, our country, and our world. Join us at Move to Amend in reclaiming our democracy by working for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate “personhood” and money as “speech” so that we may build a healthy society and world not based on profit, but on peace!

Women Rally at the U.S. Capitol to Protest surge of “NEO-MEDIEVAL PERSECUTION”, the current all-too-real legislative War on Women

WHEN: SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WHERE: U.S. CAPITOL WEST LAWN, Washington, DC

WHAT: LARGE RALLY to PROTEST current partisan legislative WAR ON WOMEN and FAMILIES (e.g., 916 anti-woman, anti-family bills over just 3-month period, ongoing)

The Capitol (Washington, DC)—The Woman’s Revolution against the partisan very real War on Women–916 anti-woman, anti-family bills IN JUST 3 MONTHS– kicks off August 18, 2012 at the U.S. Capitol West Lawn, starting Saturday at 10 a.m. No laughing matter to these women.

Four sassy, savvy young women are in full rebellion against the War on Women. A bare few months ago, they came together, hopping-mad, as a grassroots organization at www.WeAreWoman.us to foment a Woman’s Revolution against the stingingly partisan legislative War on Women.

Their Rally-Protest at the Capitol will bring busloads of women and men from across the nation. Expect banners, music, balloons, bull horns, cowbells and decorated umbrellas.

Legendary speakers will represent National Women’s Political Caucus, Planned Parenthood, Huffington Post, National Organization for Women, National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance, Feminist Majority, and others protesting partisan legislators’ actions. Betty Jean Kling (PA) asserts that the ongoing War on Women that “is now gone over the top, absolutely IMMORAL to voters.” “Engage to be The Change you want to see” is her motto.

Founder- president of the National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance (FL) which works to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into the U.S. Constitution says they will attend with banners flying. President Sandy Oestreich (FL) says, “This War is sex discrimination to the max. ERA makes sex discrimination (male and female alike) a violation of the U.S. Constitution. If we had ERA they would not dare strike at women like this.” Dr. Dorie Rothman (NJ) affirms, “NOTHING else has the power to change this shameful American hobby of treating women/girls as ‘less than’ men and boys.”

According to the National ERA Alliance web site, www.2PassERA, ERA is still “viable and contemporaneous”, and since no state has ever rescinded its vote, ratification by just three more state legislatures passes ERA into the U.S. Constitution. Oestreich declares ERA will finally codify gender-equal treatment “across the board” and put American “females’ birthrights in the nation’s contract with its People. Without Constitutional backing, women and girls can continue to be subjected to sieges against our personhood from every quarter. There’s no getting used to that.”

The site details ERA’s benefits to the economy: can boost tax revenues, cut Medicare/Medicaid and court costs, raise the Gross Domestic Product as in other countries, and ERA uniquely requires no funding. “What’s not to LIKE?”

ERA undergirds all women’s issues, says Wendy Cartright, one of the four WeAreWoman.us founders, “This Rally says we are not going away until women are in the nation’s contract with its people, protected from continued exploitation, harassment, rape and violence. Period.” Tennessee’s Bud Fields of BlogTalkRadio says “We’ve got to become Americans again. Keeping half the nation’s talents hog-tied is against America’s best interests. Shouldn’t we be electing ADULTS?”

Saudi Arabia remains a bastion of male supremacy and, as pointed out in this article, only complied with sending a couple of tokens to the Olympics because they were forced to in order to participate. It is a disgusting example of a culture steeped in a repressive patriarchal religion and the absence of freedom that results when the church rules the state–a cautionary tale for this country which is well on its way to becoming a theocracy. Saudi Arabia needs to become secularized in order to join the 21st century and make some real changes like voting rights, driving rights, and educational rights for women if they want to show the world they are serious about progress.

We must address the current war on women going on in this country and in congress and why I entitled a grievance, “Occupy Patriarchy: End the War on Women” as women’s civil rights as a group are under serious attack and women are being specifically targeted for discrimination. Patriarchy is the underlying framework upon which war, environmental degradation, denigration of women, authoritarian hierarchy, rapacious corporate practices, exploitation, and subjugation of individuals, groups, and countries are based. The passage of the Equal Rights Amendment is fundamental to women achieving true parity and is long past due and should be part of this grievance in my opinion, and should not be put off for any reason, any more than any of the rest of our demands should be. Women have waited long enough for the yolk of patriarchy to be lifted and we must rise up and claim our full citizenship. After all, we are 52% of the 99%!

Despite the common perception that racism is a worse problem than sexism, there are a number of historical and current facts that support the argument that sexism is far more entrenched than racism. The current war on women in congress ought to be enough to end any debate. Can anyone imagine what might be happening if this kind of discrimination were aimed at an ethnic group? The arrogance of these lawmakers to openly attack all the gains of the women’s movement to date exposes the incredible level of sexist mentality to which they fall prey and the widespread acceptance of it. But to remind everyone that this has long been the case historically, let me point out some facts: black male former slaves got the right (at least on paper) to vote 50 years before women did, got recognized under the 14th amendment as “persons” over a century before women did, black civil rights got recognized before women’s civil rights, we still don’t have the equal rights amendment which would be equivalent to the Civil Rights Act, we have two holidays set aside for men of color (in addition to all the ones for white men) and not a single one recognizing a woman, we elected a black male President before a white female President, women are far less represented in Congress per capita than are blacks and latinos, pompous talk show hosts who would be afraid to raise the issue of race mock and denigrate women with impunity, race-motivated crimes make big news while violent crimes against women are so commonplace they are not even considered newsworthy, crimes targeting women just recently were recognized by congress as hate crimes while crimes targeting racial groups have long been seen as such, and the murder of the tens of millions of women during the witch hunts is barely spoken of while we hear endlessly of the suffering of other groups.

Some interesting history is that the Civil Rights Act (passed in 1964) is the rough equivalent to the ERA (first introduced in 1923 and still not passed), while the 15th amendment assuring the vote for men regardless of race (passed in 1870) is the equivalent of the 19th amendment for women (not passed until 1920). The passage of the 14th amendment actually made things worse for women by specifically guaranteeing the rights of men (regardless of race) while leaving women out, despite the efforts of suffragists to get women included as citizens and to use it to exercise the right to vote. Some woman suffragists even opposed the 15th amendment because they wanted voting rights extended to everyone, but had to abandon this as black men getting the vote had more public support. The 2008 elections are one of the most recent blatant examples of sexism being more pronounced than racism with a previously unknown black male candidate muscling out the white female frontrunner, elbowing her aside and getting fawned over by news anchors while she was severely scrutinized and criticized at every turn. Even many bigoted white men were willing to vote for a black man over a white woman and people on the left, blind to their sexism, saw voting for a black man even greater proof of their open-mindedness than voting for a white woman.

In the spirit of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Women’s History Month, I say it is high time that women be recognized under the law as having equal rights to men, that women’s rights finally be given the attention they deserve, and that sexism be identified and denounced as much as racism is. We demand equal acknowledgment and protection by society and under the law. It is time to pass THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT!

The attempts to roll back the gains of the women’s movement have been going on for a long time now, almost immediately after Roe v. Wade was passed, but it has become increasingly escalated lately with attacks now being leveled against not only reproductive rights (including contraception) but women’s health care, and even programs for victims of violence and rape being dismantled. It is time for us to stand up. Today is International Women’s Day, this is Women’s History month, and we are speaking up, taking to the airways, and taking action to help raise the awareness that this onslaught is about patriarchal dominance, not “religious freedom”.

Women are steadily making gains in other parts of the world, one of the most heartening examples being the women of the Congo, who have risen up in the face of wartime torture against the violence that has been directed at them, demanding an end to rape.[1] We see women making strides towards freedom in the Middle East with Tunisia granting equal rights to men and women, and in India, despite much discrimination, women currently holding all three of the high offices of President, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and Leader of the Opposition, while here in the U. S. women are seeing our rights and gains erode and to this day are the most under-represented group in government and the poorest members of society.

Today, in America, we are contending with attacks on women’s human rights such as the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed any employer to refuse to cover any kind of health care service by citing “moral reasons”; fetal “personhood” bills; bills requiring ultrasound, including invasive vaginal probes, prior to allowing abortions; bills outlawing abortions after 20 weeks; bills allowing health care providers to refuse to perform abortions[2] and hospitals to refuse to perform emergency abortions, even in the case of the mother’s life being at stake in the “Let Women Die Bill” that passed in the U. S. House of Representatives; the defunding of Planned Parenthood, including the Susan V. Komen Foundation dropping planned parenthood funding for cancer screenings; the continuing harassment, arson attacks, bombings and shootings of family planning staff and doctors, four of whom have been murdered between 1993 and 2009.[3]

In view of such attacks, one might think we lived in a country ruled by an Ayatollah rather than in the United States where there is supposed to be a government of, for, and by the people with the separation of church and state. But, as it turns out, the Christian fundamentalists who have made inroads into our government have been steadily blurring this line and are little different from their Muslim counterparts in their determination to restrict the freedoms of their respective female citizens. Patriarchal religion has historically often been friendly to fascism and feudalism and hostile to the values of freedom and enlightenment, particularly of course with regard to women.

Patriarchy is about domination and the abuse of power and we wish to raise the awareness of the public that the war on women is about the attempt to control women’s lives, whether it be by redefining rape, slashing funding for planned parenthood, eliminating crucial health screening and services for women, attempting to restrict and even criminalize abortion, denying access to contraception, or doing away with programs to help victims of domestic violence and rape. We will not sit by and allow women’s human rights to be treated as if they are expendable or ignore the sexist mentality that fuels these attacks. It is time for us to Occupy Patriarchy and end the War on Women.